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Railroad Industry

Railroad Industry. Effects Transportation Catalyst for other industries: steel and coal Demand for labor Time zones Robber barons Development of corporate organization and finance. Railroad Industry. Important figures “Commodore” Cornelius Vanderbilt Jay Gould JP Morgan

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Railroad Industry

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  1. Railroad Industry Effects • Transportation • Catalyst for other industries: steel and coal • Demand for labor • Time zones • Robber barons • Development of corporate organization and finance

  2. Railroad Industry Important figures • “Commodore” Cornelius Vanderbilt • Jay Gould • JP Morgan Robber barons or captains of industry?

  3. Steel Industry • Andrew Carnegie • Bessemer Process • Vertically integrated • Gospel of Wealth • Sells out to Morgan: merger creates US Steel • $1.4B market capitalization

  4. Oil Industry • Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company • Titusville, PA 1859 • Kerosene • John D. Rockefeller and Henry M. FLAGLER • Standard Oil Company/Trust • Interlocking directorates • Horizontally AND vertically integrated

  5. Electricity • Thomas Edison “Wizard of Menlo Park” • “one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration” • Incandescent bulb • General Electric Company 1892 • George Westinghouse • “War of Currents” AC/DC? • Nikola Tesla’s AC induction motor

  6. Other innovations Business management • Remington’s typewriter • Burroughs’s adding machine • Patterson’s cash register Telecommunications • Western Union, 1855 • Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, 1876 • American Telephone & Telegraph, 1899 • “Ma Bell”

  7. Other trusts • American Tobacco Company • American Sugar Refining Company • National Packing Company • Beef Trust • Swift and Armour

  8. Ideologies of Industrialization Conservative/Pro-business • Laissez-faire economics • “leave it be” • Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” • Social Darwinism • On the Origin of Species 1859 • Herbert Spencer , Thomas Malthus • Gospel of Wealth • Carnegie 1889

  9. Ideologies of Industrialization Conservative/Pro-business • Horatio Alger • Ragged Dick or, Street Life in New York with the Boot Blacks, 1868 • Rags to riches or rags to middle-class respectability?

  10. Ideologies of Industrialization Reformist/Critical • Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy • Henry George, 1879 • “single tax” • Looking Backward • Edward Bellamy, utopian socialism • Wealth and Commonwealth • Henry Demarest Lloyd, 1894

  11. Government regulation • Interstate Commerce Act 1887 • Interstate Commerce Commission • Five members, appointed by President, confirmed by Senate • “Reasonable rates” • Commerce Clause(Article I, Section 8, Clause 3) • Enumerated power but no teeth

  12. Government regulation • Sherman Antitrust Act 1890 • Bans “any combination in restraint of trade” • First use: injunction against striking rail workers’ union • United States v. E. C. Knight Co. 1895 restricts to commerce not manufacturing

  13. US Labor Movement Causes/Grievances • Mechanization and scientific management • Miserable working conditions • Public hostility to un-American behavior • Overwhelming power of capital • Internal divisions • Skilled/craft vs. unskilled • Native-born/”old stock” vs new immigrants

  14. US Labor Movement Goals • Higher wages • Safer/better working conditions • EIGHT HOUR WORKDAY • Government regulation of railroads • Arbitration of disputes with ownership • Equal pay for women/blacks • Restriction of child labor

  15. US Labor Movement Organizations • National Labor Union 1866 • Colored National Labor Union 1869 • Knights of Labor • Uriah Stephens and Terence Powderly • American Federation of Labor (AFL) • Samuel Gompers • “bread and butter unionism”

  16. US Labor Movement Milestone events • Molly Maguire trials • Irish anthracite coal miners • Schuylkill County, PA • Great Railroad Strike 1877 • Haymarket Affair/Bombing/Riot/MassacreTuesday, May 4, 1886

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